It had rained a bit one night last week. When I took Kianna (wife Evelyn’s hearing-assist service dog) for her first walk of the morning, the grass was still wet.
Imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw a one-dollar bill laying there in the grass! Naturally, I picked it up and brought it into the house, placing it on my computer desk to dry out.
After all these days, the dollar bill sits here to my right, somewhat wrinkled, but at least dry. I know nothing of its history. I have no idea who once owned it and now lost it. I certainly don’t know what wind of fortune guided it to my back yard. I can only pray that it wasn’t some child’s lunch money or that it didn’t belong to someone whose finances are so dire that one dollar would make a critical differences in their life.
But now the question lingers: What should I do with this dollar bill that gifted me? From the outset it felt somehow greedy, if not outright sacrilegious, simply to tuck it in my wallet, to be spent along with the ordinary dollar bills there. I feel that this dollar bill has been ordained for some kind of blessing, coming into my life as a way of seeing whether or not I will be the instrument of that blessing. I don’t want to fail in this mission which, on the surface, looks so insignificant, but which could well prove to make an important difference to someone in dire need, not to mention making a statement about my own values as a Christian and a human being.
Recently I heard a song on the Gaither channel (“enLighten”) on Sirius-XM. Can’t remember the exact title, but the message had to do with how Jesus was able to do so much with so little, including feeding 5,000 with just a few fish and loaves of bread. Is that what this little dollar bill is intended to do? Bring an abundance to someone through what would otherwise appear to be so little?
I have yet to figure out its purpose. Perhaps I should give it to our church’s food pantry to buy supplies that donations are not covering. Maybe I should hold onto it until Christmas and then drop it in a Salvation Army bucket. I suppose I could deposit it in our checking account to make it part of our weekly tithe to the church. I’m trying to keep the lines of communication open between God and me so when I’m given direction, I’ll know what to do with it.
Meantime, it sits there, its wrinkled little self waiting patiently ….